194 Dr. M'Keever on [March, 



dily opened, by which his army with their elephants and baggage 

 were enabled to proceed. 



Some writers have contended that the action of the acid was 

 the principal, if not the sole agent in producing the effect here 

 described ; others suppose that the solid rock was actually fused, 

 by the intense action of the fire on its surface ; while another set 

 of commentators, from the difficulties attendant on its explana- 

 tion, consider the whole statement as an idle fabrication, for 

 which the author had no foundation whatever. As, however, 

 the entire process may, I conceive, be explained on plain and 

 obvious principles, I can see no necessity for calling in question 

 the accuracy of a writer, who " for probity, candour, and impar- 

 tiality, has been so much distinguished above every other histo- 

 rian." The difficulty of procuring in those wild retreats a suffi- 

 cient number of trees for making a huge pile such as Livy 

 describes, has been advanced as one of the principal objections 

 to the statement of this historian. We are to consider, however, 

 that although this objection might apply to the very summit of 

 the Alps, where vegetation is nearly, if not altogether, sus- 

 pended : it is by no means applicable to the sides or skirts of 

 those mountains, which all travellers, and among the rest Poly- 

 bius, agree in describing, as being in several places clothed with 

 large woods. We are also to bear in mind, that the various 

 passes through those sequestered regions, run, not across the 

 ridges or summits of the mountains, as some have supposed, but 

 that they are conducted through many defiles, and were pro- 

 bably traced out by paths that have served from time immemorial, 

 as means of communication between the fertile valleys that lie 

 interspersed up and down the windings of this immense chain.* 

 Now as it can be satisfactorily proved, from the testimony of the 

 two principal historians who have recorded this memorable 

 march, that Hannibal never reached the very summit of those 

 dreary solitudes, but that he merely ascended to the top of one 

 of the lesser ridges, it is obvious that he could have had no diffi- 

 culty in procuring any quantity of fuel that he might have 

 required. Tn proof that Hannibal never attained the summit of 

 the Alps, it may be observed that Polybius and Livy, although 

 they differ materially as to the route which the Carthaginian 

 general took, agree in stating, that, having completed his 

 ascent, he conducted his troops, exhausted and broken down 

 with the innumerable hardships they had encountered, to a con- 

 venient spot, where he pointed out to them the rich and fertile 

 plains of Italy as the reward of all their toils and privations ;+ but 

 had Hannibal ascended to the upper range of the Alps, it is 

 altogether impossible he could have indulged his army with such 

 a cheering prospect ; lesser mountains would have intercepted 

 their view ; and instead of smiling luxuriant plains, an immeasur- 



• See Eustace's Classical Tour through Italy, vol. i. p. 12. 

 t See Hook's Roman History, vol. ii, p. 126. 



